Tuesday, March 27, 2012

*Last week at Aldi, I saw an intriguing package in the fruit section. Mini Kiwis? What the @#$% is a mini kiwi? Well, I had to find out, didn't I? Of course I did. Here's the package:

And inside this is what I found:

Mini Kiwis! Truth in advertising. What do you know? They are slightly larger than large grapes and have a similar type of skin that is just slightly heavier. And guess what? It tastes like a kiwi! Go figure. They're much easier and neater to eat though. Portable kiwi!

*I read that approximately 1/4 of all photocopier malfunctions worldwide are due to people sitting on them to copy their butts. Now I'm thinking of all the photocopiers I've used in my lifetime and wondering how many had someone's butt on them. Ick.

*It's my birthday. I'm 39 still young and hot.

*We were in IKEA a week or so ago (squee!) and spotted some snazzy outfits. I'd like to thank whoever (I think that should be whomever, but it sounds weird), thought it was a good idea to put cameras on cell phones. You are a genius. It was probably Steve Jobs. Anywho, I snapped this one. Click on to enlarge and drink it in.

*We ate at KFC last week. Yeah, we live large. Anyway, I thought you'd find something interesting. Again, thanks for the cameras in phones. I wouldn't let James Bond eat until I took a picture. Look at the photo below. What do you see?

What did you notice? If you dine in, they give you REAL dishes and utensils. Isn't that weird? I have to day though, that it's nice to eat at a fast food place and not eat out of or off of paper. They should do this everywhere.

*In Australia, 'Jedi' is an official religion with over 70,000 followers.

*There is a species of earthworm in Australia that can grow up to 10 feet!

*What the hell is going on in Australia? It's always been high on my list of places to visit, but now I don't know.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Hello my lovely readers. I have a confession: I'm in a blogging funk. I feel like I've lost my mojo. Oh, sure I can come up with some kick ass RTT's (who doesn't love RTT?), but other than that, I just don't know anymore. My life is less than exciting most days and I don't know that anyone really wants to read about me changing Han Solo's diapers or Teaching Indy Latin. I'm not a pretty house blogger or a craft blogger. I don't concentrate on one thing or have all sorts of funny/clever stories to tell. I sometimes feel like I've lost my words. I know that sounds nuts, but it's the only way I can think to put it. I'm not giving up on blogging though. I'm hoping my mojo will pop back up soon and I can get back to being my charming, witty, well shod, well coiffed, verbose self. Until, I may be scarce, though I'll try my best to give a good RTT. Don't give up on me!

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

*Today is the first day of spring. It has started warming up in Germany. For me this means I will soon be holed up inside my house, high on allergy meds with swollen eyes, a drippy nose (bonus, it will also be red and raw from all the wiping and blowing), and screeching like a banshee every time someone opens a door too long because they will be letting the evil pollen in. Don't you envy my family? James Bond is a lucky, lucky man.

*Speaking of James Bond, Sunday was our 17th anniversary. Yep, 17 years and I haven't killed him yet. Or he me. Though if he were to kill me, I'm pretty sure no one would ever find the body and thanks to my allergy issues, no one would likely miss me for months and months. I'm just sayin. Wow, that went off on a tangent.

*The army apparently hates our anniversary. How do I know? Because they keep sending JB away so that we cannot spend it together. We've now been apart 9 out of 17 anniversaries (and he wasn't even in the army for our 1st). He will be gone for number 18 too. I suppose I should be glad that he didn't actually leave until the morning of this anniversary, so I at least got to see him for about an hour. I suppose we could have seen each other longer if we'd gotten up earlier, but um, sleep! Hello? After having kids I have learned the value of sleep.

*Speaking of anniversaries, tomorrow is James Bond's Army-versary. He will be in for 16 year! Holy cow!

*Apparently Hong Kong has the most Rolls Royce's per capita. Perhaps I should move there.

*Indy is so into Dancing with the Stars. He's pulling for Sherri Shepard because he knows her from The View. That's right, Indy watches The View.

*Jack Wagner is still kind of hot. From a distance. Close up HD does nothing for him.

*The first coast-to-coast telephone line was established in 1914. Just thought you should know.

*Indy is in to pretty much ALL competition reality shows. His favs are America's Got Talent and The Amazing Race. He was sooo excited that AR was in Germany this week. He got quite upset that they didn't really understand much German and didn't know that Neuschwanstein was the "Cinderella" castle. He rolled his eyes and said "Everybody knows that!" He was practically jumping up and down when they were actually AT Neuschwanstein. He kept yelling "I've been there! I stood right there! I walked up that road!" It was pretty cute.

*Sherri Shepard is hilarious. She was so funny in One for the Money. If you haven't seen that, you should.

*I read that elephants are the only animals that can't jump. Think that's true?

*Sometimes I'm doing something on my laptop, I hit the mousepad the wrong way and my view starts zooming in or out and I have NO IDEA how I did it, so fixing it is a PITA. I can do it accidentally, but when I TRY to do it, no dice.

*Melissa Gilbert. How much did every kid in the late 70's/early 80's love Little House on the Prairie?

*Han Solo loves to "dance." Last night we were dancing around the living room and he was laughing so hard I thought he was going to lose his dinner. It didn't help that Indy was also dancing around (that's a sight to see) singing "Go [Han Solo], go [Han Solo], go [Han Solo], get you're groove on, uh-huh, get your groove on, shake your money maker, get your groove on." Clearly we have problems.

*Apparently the US spends $203 million dollars a year on barbed wire. I can believe that. I think half the money is spent on all the barbed wire that surrounds the building where James Bond works. It's a scary looking building. What does he do? I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. Weird, eh?

*How hot is William Levy???? Let me give you a little eye candy:

You want to watch DWTS now, don't you?

*Dear lord. Literally:

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Friday, March 16, 2012

I usually post about this after it happens, but I get a ton of comments on how people wish I'd done it earlier. Your wish has been granted!
Every year, the night before St. Parick's Day, the Naughty Leprechauns visit our house and wreak all sorts of havok. Indy looks forward to their visit almost as much as Santa. Of course they have to think of new stuff to do every year, which is quite difficult. In the past they've done the following:
Made a fort with the sofa cushions
Tipped over all the dining room chairs
Thrown all of Indy's clean socks and underwear on the floor
Turned the eggs green
Turned the milk green
Turned the toilet water green (for some reason thus is Indy's favorite and a must do every year)
Rigged it so that when Indy opened his bedroom door green confetti fell all over him (this was poorly thought out by the leprechauns as it was a mess and we were cleaning up confetti for weeks-they will not do that again!)
Opened all the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen and bathroom
Hung green streamers in front of Indy's door (so many you couldn't see the door)
Stolen toys from Indy's room and set them up in an elaborate display on the dining room table
Used Playmobil Roman and Egyptian chariots from Indy's room to have what we believe was a crazy chariot race around the living room

Of course it's not all mischief. The leprechauns also leave behind trinkets, gold wrapped chocolate coins and GREEN dollar bills. It's no wonder Indy looks forward to this! The biggest problem the leprechauns have is finding new and exciting mischief to get into every year. What will they do this year? Who knows?!?

BTW, I'm blogging from my iPhone so if it's kind of crazy, well, now you know why.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Ah, my dear readers. I have been ignoring you. Not because I don't love you, but because I've got stuffs going on. Okay, part of that stuffs was the latest of C.S. Harris's Sebastian St. Cyr Novels, When Maidens Mourn came out last week (it was so good!!!) and I had to read it ASAP. I woke up on the 5th and it was right there on my beloved Kindle! I locked myself in the bathroom (the only place I can get complete privacy while the baby sleeps and read and read and read. I even scheduled loads of independent school work for Indy because I knew the book would drop that week. I'm either completely insane or ridiculously clever. Don't tell me which one you think it is.

Now, onto the randoms.

*Last week, Indy was walking through the living room and out of nowhere looked over at me and said "My pee smells like butter." What do you say to that?

*Why is when someone says asshole on TV, they bleep out the "hole" and not the "ass?" Doesn't that seem, wait for it....ass backwards??

*Apparently, Star Trek's Mr. Spock's first name is "Edward." Huh.

*James Doohan (Mr. Scot on Star Trek) was a true war hero. An enlisted man who rose to captain in the Royal Canadian Artillery, he was with the Royal Canadian Artillery on Juno Beach on D-Day. He was shot seven times, with an eighth bullet lodging in his metal cigarette case. Three bullets shredded the middle finger of his right hand. Eventually, the finger was amputated, which is occasionally noticeable in Star Trek episodes and movies.

*I don't know why I'm on Star Trek. I read an article about it last week. I'm a dork.

*A while back we watched the Disney movie My babysitter is a Vampire." Believe it or not, it wasn't too bad. Well, now they've made it into a series on Disney XD and he loves it. He watched on last week though that scared the beejeebers out of him. He was too scared to go to bed. I, being a genius, got out a bottle of garlic salt and "sprinkled" it all around his bedroom to keep the vampires out. He went right to sleep.

*After typing "believe it or not" up there ^ I'm now singing the theme song to "Greatest American Hero." Anyone remember that? It came on when I was a kid and I loved it.
Believe or not,
I'm walking on air,
I never thought I could feel so free-ee-ee
Flying away on a wing and a prayer
Who could it be?
Believe or not,
It's just me

*Today is the 100th anniversary of girl scouts. The oldest living GS is Amelia Bowden England. She joined the GS in 1914.

*The Oreo was 100 a week or so ago. It did not originally have the cream filling. That came along in 1952. More than 345 billion Oreo cookies have been consumed to date. More than 7.5 billion Oreo cookies are consumed each year, which comes out to 625 million per month and 20.5 million per day.

*James Bond and I saw Jack and Jill last weekend. While it was predictable and had lots of crude humor (it was an Adam Sandler movie), I did NOT know that my beloved Johnny Depp was in it! He played himself and "Jill" didn't know who he was. Yeah, as if that's possible.

*Speaking of my beloved, did you read about my moral dilemma regarding him when we took our cruise? You should.

*The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards. Who even remembers floppy disks anymore?

*I worry that my iPhone thinks I'm an idiot.

*Living on a military post is often like living in a fish bowl. I think the military got some sort of deal on windows and decided to put as many in each apartment as they could. Our apartment is 1400sqft and it has 15 windows plus 1 glass door (leading to the balcony). That's a lot of windows. There are 3 groups of 3 windows each (1set in the master bed, 1 set in the dining room and one set in the living room, which butt up to the glass door). Not only are the groups of window big, they are also tall-approx 5 feet tall.

*There is a building directly across from us that also has loads of windows (not as many as us because the apts are smaller, but still, a lot). Last week I was talking on the phone and standing near the glass door when I looked across and saw something sitting on the table that I hadn't seen in years. I called James Bond over and showed him. He laughed and said he didn't know people still had them. Know what it was? One of those old, great big computer monitors. You know, the kind we all had before flat screens. It was so weird to see. It also reminded me of dial up internet. Remember that? Dial, screech, beeps and boops-enough time to get a snack-more beeps and boops and FINALLY internet. Which was slow as molasses.

*I did some Star Trek randoms, so now let's do some Star Wars!
-"Vader" is Dutch for "father."
-Luke Skywalker's name was originally going to be Dirk Starkiller.
-Nick Nolte was considered for Han Solo
-So was Tom Seleck, but he couldn't because of Magnum, PI
-The name of the planet Tatooine came from the town of Tataouine in Tunisia where the movie was filmed.
-Getting R2D2 to work was apparently problematic and the unit kept picking up Tunisian radio stations
-In the Jawa's Sandcrawler, a shiny droid says "Je t'ai coupé les patates avec des choux," something in French that means "I cut your potatoes with cabbages."

And I have just cemented myself as a geek. Indy loves me for it though.
*Wait! Bonus Star Wars AND Indiana Jones Trivia!!!
-In Raiders of the Lost Ark, when they are in the Well of Souls, you can see hieroglyphics of C3PO and R2D2 on the wall.
-The plane in the opening sequence registration code: OB-CPO.
-In The Temple of Doom, the club Willie sings in is called Club Obi-Wan

-In Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in the scene when they are in the chamber with the aliens, there are mini R2D2- and C3P0's on the chairs
-Also in KoCS, in the Mayan temple, Indy comments "I have a bad feeling about this." Han Solo said the same line in Star Wars.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Hello, my faithful readers. I hope you had a lovely weekend. Okay, we're going back on the Disney Magic cruise ship. Are you ready? Of course you are. Bear with me, it's long and full of photos and my moral dilemma will be explained later.

Day...something (you really lose track of the days, but this may have been day 10 or 11) brought us to the lovely village of Villefranche-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. Again, it was another glorious day. The boat docked and we had to take a tender into shore, which Indy thought was awesome. The view was spectacular, as were the boats in the harbor. This was my absolute favorite:

This is the town of Villefranche. I could totally live here.

Looking back at the sailboats. The Disney Magic is in the back. I'm sure the mouse ears on the smoke stacks probably gave that away.

We climbed about a million stairs on our way to the train station as I really, really wanted to go to Monaco. From the top of the first tier, we had an amazing view of the beach. I should mention that this was a topless beach. Indy leaned over to me and whispered "Mom, some of these women forgot their bra tops!" I laughed and told him this was a beach where they didn't have to be worn. He shrugged and it was no big deal. Whew!

We got to Monaco via train in about 10 minutes. The train station was fancy and the country itself was lovely. And expensive. Holy cow. For those who may not know, Monte Carlo, where the casino is located, is a ward of Monaco, with Monaco being the actual country. The whole country is about the size of a postage stamp (.76 sqmi), so I'm not sure why they have ward (sections), but it's their (little) country so, who am I?

We were there on a Sunday, so most of the stores, except the touristy places. We walked past the Louis Vuitton store and in the window they had a croquet set in a LV case. I couldn't get a good photo because of the glass, but you can see it. It was €8000. About $11000. Yikes!

Just down the road was the Casino. James Bond took the opportunity to do his best JB pose. Silly.

We were all pretty warm, so we grabbed a table at the Cafe de Paris (it was in Casino Royale) and grab something to drink. See the size of that Coke Indy's drinking? It's 33cl, which is about 11oz. They were €8 EACH. That's about $32. James Bond almost had a stroke.

The Casino didn't open until 2pm and you had to be "dressed" to go in, so obviously we didn't. I still got a photo of the interior through an open door though. Fancy.

Exterior from the back:

Side:

After that, I wanted to go see the palace, which is on top of this cliff.

James Bond and Indy weren't all that thrilled and were pretty tired so they decided to head back to Villefranche and head to the beach. I figured out the bus system, which was complicated since the Grand Prix had been run the week before and the buses were taking alternate routes until all the barricades were taken down. Oh, before I went up to The Rock (as they call the palace), I passed a bridal shop with dresses that cost about a bazillion dollars.

Once I got as far as the buses go, which is about a 10 minute walk, I headed up the hill. The streets were tiny and full of character.

The front of the palace and the main square.

The view from the right side of the palace square:

The view from the left side of the palace square:

Nice views, eh? I took the tour of the palace,I wasn't allowed to take photos though-boo. Prince Albert narrates the tour on the headphone in the English, French and Italian versions and has a lovely, mellow voice. BTW, it's pronounced muh-NAHH-coh, not MON-uh-coh, like we would say it. The tour started on the balcony that overlooks courtyard where the royal wedding between Albert and Charlene was held last year. When I watched the wedding, I was all "I SAW THAT! I STOOD ON THAT BALCONY!" I'm a bit of a dork like that though. There were paintings of Princess Grace everywhere. Good golly was she beautiful. There was even a painting taller than me that shows Rainier and the 3 kids with Grace looking down on them from clouds. It was sweet, but also kind of creepy.

After the tour, I headed over to St. Nicholas Cathedral.

There are 26 Monegasque rulers buried in St. Nicholas. Here are the graves of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier:

I finally decided to head back to the bus stop and head back to Villefranche. This is what was waiting at the bus stop. Pretty!

So, here's the moral dilemma. My beloved Johnny Depp, as you may know from this previous blog post, lives in Plan de la Tour, France, which is about a 45 minute train ride from Monaco. I could easily have left James Bond and Indy at the beach and gone to see my beloved. Oh, you know he would have let me in and been so thrilled that I had come to him. What to do, what to do????? The train lured me. Johnny lured me. Take the short trip back to Villefranche or make the hour long run to my beloved? It would have been so simple! In the end, of course, I took the train to Villefranche and bid my beloved adieu. I know we'll be together eventually, so what was one more day?